San Diego still struggling with police vacancies

San Diego continues to struggle with a shortage of police officers despite recent compensation increases and new recruiting strategies.

Nearly 180 of the Police Department’s more than 2,000 budgeted sworn officer positions were vacant as of late October, frustrating city leaders who have been expecting the numbers to drop.

The problem would have gotten significantly worse without a package of large compensation increases given to police last year, Chief Shelley Zimmerman told a City Council committee last month.

Aggressive recruiting efforts, particularly in low-income areas and minority neighborhoods, is now the main strategy the city is pursuing, Zimmerman told the council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee.

It is showing results, but relatively slowly, she said. Zimmerman said the problem, which has been exacerbated by officers fleeing to other law enforcement jobs with higher pay, began with hiring freezes and other staffing decisions during the Great Recession.

“It didn’t take us one year to get into this position,” she said. “It’s going to take us many years to get to our budgeted staffing.”

But last summer there was optimism the compensation increases, which targeted veteran officers who had been leaving for other jobs, would sharply and quickly make a difference.

An analysis by the Independent Budget Analyst shows that hasn’t happened and that the city has barely made a dent in the problem over the last three years.

The analysis shows the number of vacant positions has dropped from 207 to 177 since 2013, and that the rate of officers leaving or retiring each month has remained between 12 and 14 during that time.

“Although there’s been a lot of hiring and a lot of emphasis on recruiting and retention, the hiring has been offset by consistent attrition,” said Chris Olsen, a fiscal and policy analyst for the IBA.

Councilman Todd Gloria said he’s frustrated the compensations increases “aren’t moving the needle” and urged Zimmerman to come up with a plan even if it includes asking the council for more money.

Meanwhile, the city’s 9-1-1 call dispatch center continues a success story that began last spring in the wake of some long-delayed responses to emergency calls that got significant media attention.

Since a series of management changes and 26.6 percent pay raises for dispatchers, average wait times have dropped every month and the percentage of calls answered within 10 seconds has climbed from 67.41 percent to 88.43 percent in September, nearly matching the national standard of 90 percent.

Police Capt. Jerry Hara said 35 new dispatchers have been hired this year and 32 are still with the city, a much lower attrition rate than before the changes.

Hara said the city has also begun tracking non-emergency calls to the department’s general number, (619) 531-2000.

Despite frequent complaints that calls to the line get answered too slowly, Hara said 29 percent are answered within 10 seconds and 83 percent are answered within 2 minutes. He said the average wait hovers around 4 minutes, but varies from week to week and season to season.